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Yonder - Interview with David Tyler

If you love going on
adventures, Yonder will probably be your
new favorite mobile application. With over 27,000 ways to uncover outdoor adventures,
Yonder gives you access both to places on your bucket list and to destinations
you may not have even known existed. You can download Yonder for free on both
iOS and Android here. Be warned
though, once you make your very own Yonder account, there is a relatively high
chance you’ll quickly be spending all your free time scrolling through the
postings shared by the Yonder community. And from there, you will very likely be
planning your next adventure.

We caught up with Yonder CEO
David Tyler, formerly of Apple, to see how he was able to successfully combine
tech and adventure, his favorite Yonder finds, and where the app is going next.

David Tyler enjoying the mountain bike trails
near his home in southern Vermont.

What
prompted you to combine your passions for technology and outdoor adventure?

It seemed obvious. If you believe you can
create positive value by doing something you love and believe in, that’s
exactly what you should do.

How
has your technological background and time with Apple helped the creation of
Yonder?

It’s hard to work for Apple without being
influenced by their collective commitment to user experience. It touches all
parts of the organization, and extends well beyond hardware and software. Fast
forward to present day, and I’m constantly energized by Apple’s philosophy, to
make the very best products in their categories with as few compromises as
possible.

What
influenced the user interface for Yonder? How long did it take to design and
implement?

A little bit of everything. I tend to
download and “test” dozens of apps weekly. Together with our product team,
we’re always looking at how others go about building engaging experiences. At
the end of the day, designing a product like Yonder is ongoing.

The
Yonder crew at their Woodstock, VT headquarters.

How
does Yonder promote exploration and adventure travel?

We built Yonder to inspire and enable a love
for the outdoors. Instead of just making another photo sharing app, we set out
to make something that allowed every shared experience to inspire real action.
Every image and video is geo-located and tagged to activity categories. By
combining users experiences with our database of outdoor destinations, we help
people discover opportunities to spend quality recreational time outdoors more
easily and more dynamically than any other product on the market.

How
have you been able to keep the Yonder community exclusively to adventure
seekers?

It started with how we engineered Yonder, but
ultimately we’re community-driven and defined collectively by our members. In a
short amount of time, I’ve watched Yonder become the most positive, welcoming,
digital representation of the outdoor community.

Our mission is about inspiring people to get
outside, try new things, and meet new people. That’s why perhaps the most
remarkable development has been multi-day ‘Yonder meet-ups’ that community
members self-organize. It’s incredibly inspiring to see users travel from all
over the country to meet and share “IRL” experiences with one another. Helping
to enable these adventures is exactly why Yonder exists.

It really comes down to product decisions.
Yonder encourages people with similar passions to share experiences with one
another, and this naturally causes them to interact. That being said, we’re
always thoughtful about user interface/user experience choices that encourage
positive behaviors we want to see within the community.

Have
there been any photos of places on the app that have inspired you to travel
there?

All the time. Last year my wife and I went on
a road trip through southern Utah that was inspired exclusively by the Yonder
community. Everyone I work with at Yonder has a similar story.

Where
was the coolest place you’ve seen on Yonder?

That’s a really hard one. I’m constantly
blown away by the Yonder community’s experiences. There are more places and
adventures across the world than will ever fit into one lifetime. Let’s just
say that my bucket list isn’t getting any shorter.

The
app launched in 2013. What has the growth been since the launch and where do
you see it going?

Yonder launched in beta (a somewhat
unfinished version of what it has become) in 2013. It’s evolved in some pretty
significant ways. We’ve had over half a million downloads, seen experiences
posted in nearly every country across the globe and we’re only just getting
started. We’re building the social discovery engine for the outdoor and
adventure travel industries and even powering interactive experiences for partners
like The North Face and United States Forest Service. I feel like we’re in the
first inning of something pretty special.